Activities like this formed critical friendships and bonds between Democrats and Republicans. It made it possible to find compromise on difficult issues and actually govern the country. They still had plenty of political fights but at least there was a certain amount of respect and friendship between the members.
It’s a shame the 4 O’Clock Caucus ended in the mid 1990’s. Social activities like this are so badly needed in our fractured Congress today. The activity itself doesn’t really matter. It’s building friendships and mutual respect that would help in Congress.
There were other ways they got together. Hillary Clinton is known for being a member of The Family, a Bible study group that is mostly Republican, but has a few Democrats in it, like Clinton:
There are actually tons of opportunities for bipartisan get togethers, but for whatever reason a lot of them don’t want to do it. Just look at this message board. We don’t even have a real stake in most of these issues, yet many posters treat those on the other side as not just people to disagree with, but Bad People. Is it any wonder Congressmen, who have far more at stake in these debates, are having bad blood?
Because you win votes by demonizing the other side and whipping your side up into a lather about stopping the Other People who only want to destroy America. You can’t sell the other side as monsters that you’ll protect America from and then say “Well, maybe they do have some good ideas…” or “Well, we could compromise on some of these things…”
People don’t want bipartisanship, they want to win. Politicans want to get elected more than they want to risk losing by changing the tone.
I blame the rise in term limit laws, reducing the number of people who’ve been in Congress long enough to know how to get things done and who to work with to do it. A large number now are in there because they whipped up anti-Washington anger (easy to do, any two-bit pol knows how) to get elected, they often share those feelings themselves, and they see it as their duty to oppose anything the Insiders want. They’ll never have to pay at the polls for lack of accomplishment because they don’t see their duty as to accomplish, and their electoral base doesn’t want them to. And, since they’ll have to go home in just a few years, they only have a little time to cash in on donations from people whose interests are generally to oppose federal power from interfering with them.
I don’t think there are any term limit laws for Congress, just term limit pledges.
What might be more accurate is to blame Citizens United, which has led to a lot more turnover in Congress, since incumbents used to be harder to beat. I think the current Congress is mostly made up of people who have been there for less than eight years.
From what I’ve read about the Clintons’ relationship with the Family, they are kind of on the outer edges, not deep inside the movement. Supposedly they sought counsel from the Family just after the Lewinsky affair, kinda like family counseling and Hillary has since continued to join their bible studies with some Senate colleagues. Or at least did when she was in the Senate.
Her opponents are certainly free to bring it up, but it doesn’t look like she’s “one of them”, per se.
Well, that’s reassuring WRT the Clintons, but nothing else known about The Family is reassuring in any way. They worship power, and think those who have it are therefore blessed by God. Any pol who is in any but the marginal Clinton way associated with it should be considered forever beyond the pale of civilization, damned and irredeemable and unelectable.
Well, if they are that bad, anyone associated with them at all should be regarded as beyond the pale. I see the Family as simply a right-wing prayer group with a ton of influence because they are smart enough to operate on the downlow and directly influence a lot of Congressmen. What you linked to was a very critical expose of them, which is never the whole story.